Photo by Robert Landau
|
The Contrarian Traveler
Big Moves, Big Bargains
By Peter Greenberg, March & April 2009
Want to save on a car rental, RV rental, or cruise? When companies relocate fleets, you can get great one-way deals
|
Steer and Save Sign up with Auto Driveaway (800-346-2277) and you can drive—for free—cars that need to be relocated. Just fill out a form and say where you want to travel. There's no rental charge—just a refundable cash deposit (generally $350). The first tank of gas is free. Some car-rental companies also offer deals on one-way rentals in spring or fall, when cars are moved from warmer markets to cooler ones, and vice versa. Hertz, for example, sometimes offers prices as low as $5.99 a day in March and April from Florida, going north; and in October and November, going south. Call several companies and ask about deals. The earlier you book, the better the rate. When it's time to come home, you can get reasonable one-way fares from airlines such as Southwest and JetBlue.
 
Get a Motorhome Markdown In the RV biz it's called a fleet move—when a company repositions its vehicles to a different part of the country. You can save 50 percent or more on rental costs on one of these vehicles, and you won't get hit with a one-way drop-off fee. Try Cruise America (800-671-8042) or El Monte RV (888-337-2214). In late autumn Cruise America often has one-way deals as low as $24 per day on used RVs that need to be driven from the company's base in Phoenix to resale markets. Also check GoRVing.com, which lists about 400 rental companies.
Come Sale Away Fall and spring are the best times to take a repositioning cruise—when ships move from Alaska to the West Coast, for instance, or from Europe to the Caribbean, as cruise lines rearrange their fleets for changing seasons. Repositioning cruises can cost up to 50 percent less per day than a regular roundtrip cruise, depending on when you book (they're cheaper when they're first offered). The ideal repositioning-cruise candidate is someone who likes lounging by the pool and soaking in the ocean air: these are generally 14- to 22-day trips, and you'll typically have more time at sea and fewer port stops than on a regular cruise.
Fare Warnings
If you want to save money on airfare—without doing a lot of work—try out these websites.
Low-Cost Locale: ARGENTINA
At press time, one U.S. dollar was worth roughly 3.4 pesos, the highest the greenback has been against the peso in five years.
Farecast.com Lets you choose destinations and dates, then sends an alert if the price drops.
Airfarewatchdog.com Sends alerts when prices fall for domestic and international flights, checks seat availability, and lists Web-only fares. It also shows unadvertised and short-lived fares, as well as "error" fares (often called "fat finger fares," because they're usually caused by human typos), which airlines frequently honor.
Yapta.com Goes a step further: it'll help you get a refund if you buy a ticket and the price later drops.
Do This Now! Sign up for "fare alert" e-mails and newsletters offered by airline websites and by travel sites such as Travelzoo.com, ShermansTravel.com, and Hotwire.com.
Find Peter Greenberg Q&As and videos on AARP.org
|
